Hideaway (Devil's Night 2)

How the hell did she get the elevators working?

As soon as the doors opened, I stepped inside, punched the twelve and then the button for the doors to close.

She knew he was here the whole time. She’d been seeing him, watching us fumble about and listening to our conversations. I mean, I knew she wasn’t on our side. She never made any secret where her loyalties laid? So, why did I want to throttle her more than him right now?

I clenched my goddamn jaw so hard, my teeth ached. If she liked ruthless men so much, I’d show her how ruthless I could be.

I slammed my hand into the 12 again, so angry I barely noticed that it wasn’t lighting up.

Or that the elevator wasn’t moving yet.

What the fuck? Wasn’t it just running a minute ago? Why wasn’t it working now?

I hit the button a few more times, looking around for any lights to show the elevator registered where I wanted to move, but nothing.

The fluorescent lighting was dank inside the elevator, and I looked around for any other buttons to push or anything else that looked unusual. Anything to indicate how to get where I wanted to go.

The elevator went to the twelfth floor. A twelfth floor existed. I knew that now.

I pushed the 11 just to see if it would work.

And it did. The 11 suddenly lit up, and I felt the cables shift around me and gravity weigh me down as I began to ascend. The doors opened on eleven, and I glanced up long enough to see the dark hallway in front of me before I hit the 13 and quickly closed the doors again. I rose higher once more, stopping on 13 as the doors opened, allowing me entrance to the floor.

I closed the elevator doors again. How was she getting the elevator to stop on twelve?

Maybe there was another stairwell access on one of these floors? They had to have one that reached twelve. What if there was a fire or the elevators broke?

I reached out and tried the only other thing that came to me. I pressed the 11 and the 13 together.

To my surprise, they both lit up.

But I still didn’t feel the elevator move.

Instead, a short whirring came from behind me, and I jerked around, seeing a silver panel rise up to reveal a hidden key pad in the elevator wall.

My heart skipped a beat. So, that was it. That was how she was getting to the twelfth floor.

And she knew it the last time we were here.

Walking over to the keypad, I noticed clear buttons with black numbers on them, along with a small screen that was lit up green.

I punched in the only code I knew. The one for the outside doors to get in the building.

Nothing happened.

I tried again, pressing the # symbol afterward.

Still nothing.

It was a different code. One I didn’t get.

But something Banks said once made me pause.

“…and when it was investigated there wasn’t even a possibility for the elevator to stop there. The floor was walled in.”

But that wasn’t true. She stopped on this floor.

Keeping my back to the doors of the elevator, I leaned in close to the back wall, lying my head on the steel. I ran my hand up the edge, noticing a gap where the wall met the panel.